Wow Your Customers with Great Customer Service

1. Welcome to Class!: Hi there, My name is Ben. I'll be your instructor today. I am very excited that you're here. This class is going to be extremely helpful for anybody who is looking to up their game when it comes to customer service, when it comes to sales, or today talking about how to wow your customers will get it a little bit more about this class. But I just wanted to stop here and say thank you for taking the class, thank you for being here. I am really excited for you to be here. I would love to tell you a little bit more about who should be here, why you should be here? What we're going to learn, Let's dive in who this class is for, is for a lot of different types of people. Essentially, if you have any type of customer, if you have anybody who is paying you for your services, this is a great class for you. So that could be small business owners. That one's a little bit more obvious, but creative. It's an artist can really benefit from this class as well. And then non-profits and fundraisers have a lot of stakeholders, a lot of customers that can benefit from this class as well. My name is Ben, I am your teacher today and I teach a lot of different classes on Skillshare. Little bit about me. I am a business owner. I own multiple different types of businesses. Most notably, I have an Etsy shop that I run, and I also have a photo booth rental company where I go out to different parties and rent out my photo booth and get pictures of people having a great time. I'm almost I'm also a side hustle coach, so I spend a lot of time coaching other people about how to run and start their small businesses and their side hustles. And professionally in my day job, I am a customer Service and Sales Professional. So you can kind of see how this is all coming together to teach this one class all about how to wow your customers in your small business, your organization. And I'm really excited to be here and to get started on teaching these lessons In today's agenda, we really have 15 lessons that I wanted to teach you, but it's broken into three different categories. The first category is all about promises, promises that you make to your customers, and how you can really over-promise, or how you can really under promise and over-deliver when it comes to your customers. The second one is surprise and delight. So we're talking about how can you really surprise your customers? A lot of times when we're looking to wow our customers, one of the best ways we can do that is to surprise and delight them. Then the third thing is a little bit more tactical, a little bit more practical. And this is about fixing things swiftly. Fixing things quickly when you have customers who are upset with something, how to make sure you're really wowing them when you're finding a solution. Once we take this class and everything is all set and done, what I really want you to do is take one of these lessons for your project. Take one of these lessons and commit to trying it with one of your customers or one of your patrons or one of your stakeholders. Share that with us in the class project below. I think it'll be really fun to see which lessons people are connecting to the most, and let's all hold each other accountable. So without further ado, I would love to get started. Let's move on to the next lesson. 2. Challenges and Solutions: So before we totally get into the 1800s ideas, I just wanted to stop here quickly to talk about the challenges when it comes to customer service. And really the challenges of customer service that we're all running these businesses were all running these organizations. And we don't have a lot of times there's limited time, there's limited resources. But we know as a fact that one of the best ways to grow our business is to have really great customer service. Because great customer service leads to loyalty. And loyalty leads to more customers and loyalty leads to more customers, which leads to more money. More money leads to a more successful business or organization. So it's really that balance between having those limited resources, but also understanding that good customer service is worth investing in. And so the challenge is really that balance. So before we even talk about what you can do to go above and beyond with your customers. I just want to sit here and acknowledge that, that it can be really difficult to understand for yourself and your business and even your employees if you have them, how to really balance those two things. But the solutions when it comes to small businesses, when it comes to customer service, is these three things which I just mentioned in the introduction. But ultimately I have 15 ideas for you. And they're very strong tactical ideas that will be very practical and you can put them into place immediately after you take this class. Next time you've got a customer service e-mail. Next time you're dealing with a customer, you will be able to take these ideas and turn them into realities. And make sure that you are allowing your customers and making them love your business. That's what this really, that's what this class really is about, is making customers love your business, love your products and love you as the business owner and the entrepreneur. Without further ado, let's get into the first category of ideas. 3. Category 1: Under Promise & Over Deliver: Okay, so we are moving, we're getting started on this class. The first category of ideas for wowing your customers in customer service with your business is under promising and over-delivering. And I know that you have probably heard that phrase before. I wanted to break it down into five specific and actionable ideas that you can take and put them into movement. Now, I'm going to explain these five ideas and that's gonna be the kind of structure of how this course works is there's a category and then there's five ideas underneath. The first idea. And this is an obvious one, but it's something that we kind of get behind on sometimes. But when you're talking to customers, There's the quicker you can get back to them. Whether this is in-person, whether this is online, whether this is on a platform like Etsy or Shopify, the quicker you can get back to them, the better it's going to be. Because a lot of companies do not get back to customers very quickly. If you want to stand out and you want to be accompany, that allows your customers the quicker you can get back to people, the better. And I know this from years of customer service that a lot of times when you get back to people really quickly, they feel delighted and they feel surprised that you got the map, that you got back to them that quickly and they feel just more excited about talking to you as a business. The second one is if you have the opportunity to, if you can ship faster than you say you're going to ship, that is a great way to under promise and over-deliver. So if you have, if you're selling greeting cards for example, and you tell people that they will come in seven to ten days if they can get there in three to five days, that's a really great way to wow your customers. Another thing that I'll say about wow in your customers is it doesn't have to be something that is within all of your policies and procedures to always be wowing your customers. You can choose specific customers to wow. So if your standard policy is seven to ten days for shipping, then maybe you can choose somebody who is special and you choose somebody who needs a little bit of love and send them something in three to five days. The next one is give a larger discount than they expected at the checkout. So this is just an idea. A lot of times with our businesses, we can't afford to give discounts. But if you can at checkout or when you're actually checking out in-person with a customer, offer them a in 10%, 20 percent discount because that will make them feel extra grateful that they're shopping with you. The next one is adding extras into their orders. So if you're shipping boxes of things, or if you are maybe selling groceries or you're selling like you're you're selling bracelets or whatever you're selling. If you sell them three items, maybe add a fourth in there as a gift to them. Because sometimes people love to get more than they paid for and that's number five as well, deliver something more than what they paid for. So if you're selling groceries, I don't know why I'm groceries kick right now. But if you're selling groceries and someone pays for 12 pack of eggs, maybe if you give them an 18 pack of eggs, they will really enjoy that and they will feel more loyal to your customers, more loyal to your store, more loyal to you as the entrepreneur. That's just an example. If you're selling balloons to children or if you are doing face painting at a party, maybe you can stay an extra 30 minutes at no charge. That's just one way that you can specifically wow your customers. And like I said, you don't have to, you don't have to specifically take these, take these ideas and wow every single customer. But these are ways that you can give a certain customer more love with that. Really under promising and over-delivering is a great way to make sure that you are allowing your customers and your customers feel loyal to you, your store, you're a business and you as the entrepreneur. Let's move on to number two, which is surprise and delight. 4. Category 2: Surprise & Delight: This second category here is one of my favorites and it's something that I learned in my early days of working in customer service as a customer service agent at startups in New York City. And I hadn't ever heard this term before. A surprise and delight. But it's something that I became so in love with when I heard it, when I realized what it meant. And surprise and delight is a way to make sure that your customers aren't just hearing from you when they reach out or when they want to buy from you, It's a great way to sprinkle in some love throughout the year in a way that makes them feel thought of, made them feel heard, and makes them feel excited to be shopping with you. So I have five ideas here on how you can surprise your customers and make them feel delighted. The first one is to message them when they are not expecting it. So this is something that I've done a lot in my businesses. When somebody is not necessarily shopping with you, messaging them and just letting them know that you're thinking of them, or that you have a discount code for them, or that you are specifically excited about something that they're going through. Maybe you follow them on Instagram and you notice that they had a baby or whatever it is, just messaging them when they're not expecting. It can be a really great way to let them feel more connected to your business in a way that's really organic and unique. The second one is centering them small gifts. So this is leveling up from just a message, sending them a small gift. Maybe at the holidays, maybe you are a greeting card company and you want to send them something on Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, sending them small gifts and something that you can afford to send can really make a customer feel heard, make them feel excited about your business and make them feel like they are really connected to you as the entrepreneur. Number three is to send them a random note of thanks or kindness. And this is specifically, I really think being grateful for somebody's business is a great way to retain them as a customer or as a user. If you serve somebody in June, maybe sending them a message in August or September and saying, Hey, I was just thinking about the job that I did for you back in June. I really had fun chatting with you about X, Y, and Z. I would love to work with you again in the future. I just wanted to say, I appreciate your business and thank you so much. That can go a long way just without asking them for anything in return, just offering them a note of things can be something that is really powerful when they're looking to book another person again or buy from another person again. If you have an Etsy shop and you know, people are buying so many things in their lives throughout the year. And how many times for you as a buyer, how many times have you gotten to note two months later, thanking you for the business that you gave to an entrepreneur. Like it really will make you stand out. And so I highly recommend doing that. Number four is kind of a unique idea, but sending them gifts for their friends to make them look good in their community. So for example, I keep going back to this greeting card business idea. But if you are an artist and you sell greeting cards, maybe something that you can do is on for the holidays, maybe you can send them five cards that you had printed out and tell them, Hey, I really want you to have these cards to send to your friends. And I just thought that you might like it and just give them something that they can then use to send to their friends. And the cool thing about that is you're giving them something without asking for anything in return. But they will spread the word about your business by giving things out or sharing your message. And it can be a really great way to spread the word about your business without having to specifically ask someone, just write the word, giving them something. Maybe you are a baker and you make cupcakes, and you offer to make they make cupcakes for their child's, for first grade birthday party. And you know that there's going to be a bunch of other parents there. Maybe you can make free cupcakes and then the parent who you made them for it will say, Hey, did you know this bakery downtown made these cupcakes for us for free and then all of those other parents are going to be interested in your cooking business. That's a marketing idea, but this is really how to wow your customers. So I will let you in on a secret, wowing your customers is a great marketing idea. You should think about it as a marketing thing for growth. If I can wow my customers and they tell their friends about my business, my business will grow, so it's woven in there. So it's hard to sometimes differentiate between a marketing idea and that idea to wow your customers because oftentimes they are very intertwined. The next one, and this is a great example of how these two things can be intertwined, is a way to surprise and delight your customer is to highlight them on your social media. Maybe you have a customer of the week. Maybe you just tell a story about how this customer came into your store and they had such a great experience serving them. Or maybe you are a birthday clown and you want to post a picture of yourself with the group of kids or something like that. And you can tag them on their social media. And so they feel extra special because they made it onto your public page. And this can be a great way to surprise and delight your customers. Surprising people is a great way to go above and beyond their expectations. And when you go above and beyond their expectations, that's when a customer feels like, wow, this business is really great and I want to have them a bigger part of my life. And so surprising and delighting is just a really, really great idea. And with that, let's move to idea number three, which is fixing things quickly. Very important topic. 5. Category 3: Fix Things Swiftly: This is category number three. And again, there's five ideas below here. But really fixing things quickly and swiftly can really wow your customers. Customers know that things are going to go wrong when you're shipping things, when you're delivering things, when you are providing services, a lot of people are very flexible as long as you can take care of it and handle it swiftly and quickly. A story I have here is that I used to lead a training department for a customer service team. And one of the trainers would ask a question in her session and say What a great customer service experience that you've had in the past six months. And everybody around the table would go around and talk about their best customer experiences. One time I was sitting in the room listening to these stories and something hit me. And it was really interesting to me. So essentially, you would think that the best customer service experiences are when you order something, you get it, or when you pay for something, you get it and there's no problems. But oftentimes the stories that people were Italian, where the stories of when something went wrong and somebody fixed it really quickly, or if somebody fixed it really well, or somebody who went above and beyond in their solution. And so it's really interesting because when something goes wrong and when there are complaints with a customer, that can be one of the best times to wow the customer because people go into it. Customers go into it with such cynical views because they've been burned so many times by bad customer service. So a lot of times people aren't expecting great customer service, especially from a small business. And so these are five ideas to really help you elevate and escalate your customer service when things go wrong so that you can wow your customers in a way that's really meaningful and really powerful. So the first one here is two. If they ask, this is kind of complicated because sometimes you can't do what they ask. But the best way to wow a customer is if somebody says, Hey, I need a refund and you say, bam, yes, here's your refund, you'll get it in two to three days. Thank you so much for thank you so much for letting us know. Thank you so much for your feedback. We really value it and here's your solution. If you can give them exactly what they're asking for, that can be really great if you can go above and beyond and give them even more than they're asking for. That can be really, really powerful as well. So a great example here. This is something that I've seen on Etsy, is when, when something goes wrong and maybe for example, somebody orders a t-shirt on empty and it gets caught up in shipping. And there's for some reason they're not going to get the item that you shipped. And so that's a problem. And so they reach out, they ask what's going on and they ask for a refund. One way that you can go above and beyond is to give them the refund and then also send them a replacement item because they did all the work to shop with you. They fell in love with you enough to buy your products. Maybe what you can do is take the loss and offer them the refund and send them a replacement item because maybe that will result in them becoming a repeat customer as much as you can. And I know this is not always possible because we're small businesses. We don't have a lot of money to work with. But if you can do what they asked for and go above and beyond, That's one way to fix things swiftly. The second one is to reply to complaints in a very timely way. So a lot of times something that I know I do is if I see a negative e-mail or something that I perceived to be negative, I will let that sit in my inbox for a long time before I answer it because I think It's not gonna be fun to answer and it's gonna be harder to answer. Well, the longer I wait to answer that, email them more upset or disappointed the customer will get in my business and me as an entrepreneur. If I can reply to an extremely quickly and say, Hey, thanks so much for your feedback. Here's a refund, whatever the solution is. That can be really, really powerful, especially because as a small business, we are competing against big businesses. And big businesses do take a long time to get back to people a lot of the time. Unless it's like the biggest businesses like Apple or Amazon. If you can differentiate yourself as a small business by going out there and replying really quickly. That's a great way to again, fix things quickly, swiftly. The third one is, if you have the opportunity to great way when something goes wrong is to get them the solution even faster than they would have in the original situation. So if they order something from you, maybe you're a jewelry seller and you sold, you send something and maybe it was broken or maybe it was lost in the mail. If you can expedite the shipping, that can be a great way to wow your customer because they're gonna be expecting the same shipping speed. Maybe it's eight to ten days. If you can get it to them in two to three days, that will really satisfy them and allow them as your customer. The fourth one. And this is something that I think is really good in terms of boundaries. And you are a business, so not everybody can offer tons of refunds or discounts or future discounts. We are working with budgets, we are working with money, but being really clear to your customer about what you can and can't do can be really nice. One of my favorite authors, Bernie Brown says, clear is kind. If you want to be nice to a customer, being as clear as you can, be a really great way to do that. So if you're not able to offer them replacement item because it was one of a kind. Then be really clear about that and say, Hey, this was something that was really special and I'm really disappointed that it wasn't able to get to you. But unfortunately, I'm not able to replace this item. Then what I say is, if you can't do something like replace this item, try to do something better. So in this case, saying, I'm not able to replace this item, but what I would love to do is offer you another item at a higher price for free that would really take care of somebody's like NX when they are upset with you about a lost item or a damaged item. So if you can't do something for them and you can't do what they're asking. Try to do something for them that is better, that is above and beyond. And most importantly, that is at a higher value. That is just one way that you can truly wow a customer. And I loved the idea of this idea, this word wow, like because it's not just every customer that you have to wow, it's these customers that need extra attention, special attention, that something went wrong. And it's your responsibility and your opportunity as the entrepreneur to really fix it and make them an ambassador for your company. Because a lot of times what people will do is they will have a damaged item or they won't be disappointed in somebody's service and then the person doesn't fix it, the entrepreneur doesn't fix it the right way, then that customer will just go to somebody else next time. But if they know that you're willing to fix it in a way that's really meaningful and really impactful, then they will be more likely to come to you in the future and there'll be more likely to tell their friends about your business. It might sound like a big investment to give them something that's a higher value. But if you do that, the chances of the return being higher than what you even gave away in the first place can be really, really high. The last thing, and this is something that I put last intentionally because it's something that I want any customer service person or any business owner to know, is that when you're talking to a customer, this is one of the biggest lessons that I learned in my first job out of college, and that was customer service was when you're talking to a customer and you're telling them know about something, they should never feel like you're telling them no. They should feel like in some way you're telling them yes. It might not be exactly what they're asking for, but it should always feel like a positive conversation that they are going to walk away with something that's great for them. Like anytime you're writing an email or you're on the phone or your in-person with a customer, if you can feel yourself just saying no, we can't do that. No, I don't do that. No, that's not possible. Think of ways that you can re-frame it as we aren't able to do that. But what I can do is this, which is even better, or no, we can't do that, but I'll do you one better. How about this? And really making them feel like they are getting something out of your conversation with you. And that they are walking away with something that's valuable. Because a lot of times when we are talking to customers, they are asking for things that were not able to give to them. And it's important that we make them feel like we're saying yes, even when we're saying no. So with that, let's move on to the conclusion of this class. I'm really excited to wrap it up. I hope that you've learned some things and I hope you've gotten a really great idea of an idea that you can move forward with, with a customer. But let's move on. 6. Class Conclusion & Next Steps: Okay, so as a reminder, wrapping up this class, these three categories to consider are under promise and over-deliver, surprise and delight, and fixing things swiftly. When you are trying to delight the customer, it might be really great to write these three categories down and come back to them when you're trying to decide what to do for a customer. Because if you're looking to allow a customer doing one of these things will really work in terms of satisfying somebody, in terms of surprising somebody and delighting somebody. Let's go to the next slide for the class project because I'm really excited about this. So I had the idea that everybody who's taking this class and you know who you are. If you've gotten this far in the class, you should really participate in this project, but choose one idea that you plan to try with one customer and tell us your plan to implement it and whether that's in the next three days and the next seven days and the next month, Let's hold each other accountable in the comments and help each other with ideas on how we can take these lessons and turn them into ways that all of us can be wowing our customers all the time. Because it can be really powerful to be a business that allows your customers. And when people are talking about word of mouth and marketing and PR, the first thing that you want to do is have good customer service. Not good, but great, great, great customer service. When it comes to customer service, think about that word, wow. Always have that in the back of your mind as you're making your decisions when it comes to customer service, the more you can wow your customers, the better off you'll be. And that is the guiding principle of this entire course that I hope you take away when you move onto your next course, when you move on to working on your business, the last thing that I'll say is thank you so much for taking this class. I really appreciate you taking the time to learn from me. I hope you had a great time. I hope you learned at least one thing. I hope you take away at least one idea. If you're interested in war, I do teach a lot more classes on Skillshare about side hustles and small business success. And I would love for you to take my courses. I teach about Etsy, I teach about social media and small business strategy, and I would love for you to take my courses. You can also find me at hustle with Ben on tiktok, Instagram and YouTube. I make a lot of content about side hustle business success. And I would love to have you over there as well, specifically on Instagram, you can DMI if you have any questions about this course or any of my other courses, because I would love to chat with you about your business. And if you have a small business idea that you're not sure of or that you want help with, please DM me over on Instagram. I would love to help you out. It's something I'm really passionate about and something that I'm really excited about, especially this coming year. With that, I will leave you. I hope you have a great day and even better week and good luck.